The diversity and size of our population are growing.
Gen Z, who already account for roughly 40% of global consumers and have a spending power of $143 billion, are more racially and ethnically diverse than any previous generation.
And similar to millennials, they are highly passionate about fighting social injustice and inequality.
Which is a wonderful thing. And something that should be reflected by brands.
After all, any way to champion equality and make every individual feel welcomed and represented is a positive.
As the world becomes more diverse, and our youngest generations are leading the way, we want to help brands bring better diversity into their email marketing.
Here are 5 ways to do just that.
Messaging and imagery
An important part of marketing to a diverse audience is ensuring that every recipient feels welcomed and represented in your email communications.
Language and imagery are key to achieving this.
Yes, aiming to represent every individual is of course the ideal. But it’s not necessarily realistic straight away. So, we recommend brands begin with their current audience and target market.
Aiming to represent these individuals over the course of their email communications.
Brands don’t have to force all types of representation into every single email, this would become confusing and take away from the overall message. Instead, brands should ensure that a core part of their strategy is the ongoing representation of diversity.
And of course, this isn’t just limited to email communications. Diverse messaging and imagery are things that should be replicated throughout all of a brand’s marketing. Reinforcing a consistent message.
Diverse campaigns
Similar to messaging and imagery, sending out email campaigns that address every holiday, religious occasion, and political movement is pretty much impossible.
So again, brands should begin with their target audience, and branch out from there.
Start by reviewing your campaign plan. Is it mainly focused on Christmas, New Year, Easter, Valentines, etc? If so, that’s not particularly diverse.
Instead, there are a wealth of diverse campaign opportunities that can be celebrated. Eid, Chinese New Year, and Diwali, to name just a few.
And this doesn’t include movements, events, and charities that diverse audiences are passionate about.
But if you need a little support and inspiration in your diverse campaign planning, this Inclusivity Calendar from CIPD may be of help.
Gather feedback
Part of ensuring diversity is reflected in your email marketing is to encourage your target audience to have a voice in it.
This means making an effort to regularly collect and listen to audience and customer feedback, before and after key campaigns or changes to messaging and branding.
By doing this, you will be gathering a powerful source of insight into your email campaigns and overall marketing, that can be grown as you collect more data.
Even better, encourage your diverse audience to create content that reinforces how they engage with your brand. User-generated content (UGC) is a powerful tool for marketers, with consumers who interact with UGC spending an average of 120% more time on a website.
It helps potential customers to trust your message, and realise that as well as talking the talk, you also walk the walk.
Hire a diverse team
Not only do diverse teams deliver better performance, they give huge insight where it might be lacking otherwise.
Hiring a team that brings to the table a range of cultural understanding ensures authenticity in campaign creation, because getting it wrong could be a costly mistake.
Be genuine
Yes, diversity in marketing is undeniably important. But it must be genuine.
Because modern consumers are savvy. They’re not afraid to call out brands who are faking it. And they’re happy to protest not only with their buying power, but all over social media too.
So, brands should never use diversity and related causes as something to piggyback on for additional promotion. Instead, diversity should be something included in their email marketing strategy as standard.
Part of achieving this is embedding a passion for diversity throughout the entire business. Consider it as part of your company values, charity work, and something that is raised in business reviews.
This shows your audience that diversity is key not only to your marketing, but as a business as a whole.
How diverse is the email marketing industry?
Email Marketing industry body, OnlyInfluencers took a look at the diversity and inclusion of the global email marketing industry take a read of the full report here.